


Driven to Distraction

by MachineQueen



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Femslash February, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 14:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17685575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachineQueen/pseuds/MachineQueen
Summary: Yaz accidentally signs herself up to a TARDIS driving lesson. Unfortunately, her instructor is very distracting.





	Driven to Distraction

It was selfish, she supposed, but Yaz liked it best when Graham and Ryan had given up and gone to bed and it was just her and the Doctor in the console room. That way Yaz could perch in a corner and watch as the most wonderful person in the universe modified her time machine with tin cans, bits of string and miscellaneous intergalactic junk. 

“These are the quantum brake pads but they’ve really never been any good. These babies are why we end up only almost at the time we want. They’re not cheap to replace and to be fair they do work about 64% of the time-”

“Can’t you just take it to a time machine Kwik Fit or something?”

The Doctor gave her a long look, like she’d never heard anything so daft in all her days. “No.”

The uncharacteristically brief answer made Yaz itch with curiosity. She hurried on with her questions before the Doctor could go off on another tangent. 

“So have we got breakdown cover? Like, RAC membership for time travellers?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” said the Doctor. “I promise you Yaz, I will always get you home.”

“I know. I just wondered.”

“There’s just me. No one else. And even if there were, I wouldn’t let them touch my TARDIS.”

The way she said that, with a proud lift of her chin and a little cat smile made Yaz feel quivery inside. Her brain was already writing a fantasy where the Doctor talked about her the same possessive way she did the TARDIS. ‘I won’t let them touch you, Yaz.’ It made Yaz feel awful (because nothing would ever happen) and wonderful (because what if). 

“Are you OK? You look hot,” said the Doctor and for one mad moment Yaz thought she meant hot hot and she spluttered because she’d been wearing the same jeans three days running and her hair had seen better days. But then the Doctor added. “Maybe I should turn the heating down a tad...”

Yaz didn’t protest, just watched as the Doctor’s clever hands flicked switches and pulled levers. And tried not to think about the impossible possibility of those hands touching her lips or running through her hair. 

The Doctor had decided that Yaz was keen on learning how to drive the TARDIS and that was why she was spending so much time in the console room. Yaz couldn’t exactly say ‘Erm no, I just like watching you.’ So she went along with the lie and wondered if she should tell Ryan about her impromptu TARDIS lessons, given that he was the one who wanted to be a mechanic.

“I worked out a cheat that uses the gravity of the time vortex to give us a neat turbo boost. Want to see?”

...Yes, she really should tell Ryan. Except the Doctor liked to guide her hands to tell her which levers to move, as she was doing now. It was a little hard to concentrate with that warm, lilting voice so close to her face, breath tickling her ear. If she had to share the Doctor with Ryan, she might go mad with jealousy. Then her hand might slip on the TARDIS controls and knowing their luck they’d probably end up falling through a black hole and it would all be Yaz’s fault. 

“How did you learn all this stuff?” Yaz asked the Doctor, in an effort to distract herself from the rattle of her own thoughts. 

“Oh, you know. A thousand years of trial and error. Even now I wouldn’t say there was an exact method...this isn’t like driving a car. You have to put your hearts in it. You have to feel something.”

“Something?”

“Lots of things! Excitement, fear, wanderlust, a dash of boredom and a thirst for the unknown. Not everyone has them all in the right order and the right combination. I only take the people who do.”

“So if I were really scared, the TARDIS would react to that?”

“Mmm, she’d probably take us somewhere so frightening that you’d forget you were ever scared of anything else!”

“And...have there been lots of people who travelled with you?”

“Don’t look old. Don’t feel old. But I am. So yes.”

The Doctor was watching her carefully, as if she were a bomb about to explode at any second. One of her hands was poised over Yaz’s, unusual in its stillness. Yaz sensed the Doctor might have had this conversation before and that it might not have gone well. But at the same time… What did that make her? What did the Doctor get out of having her and the others travel with her? 

“Were they...like me?”

“Some were human, if that's what you mean. But there's only one Yasmin Khan.”

Yaz couldn’t help but smile at that. Warmth spread through her and she felt herself falling a little bit more in love. There was a part of her crying out that she was in too deep, to get out now because these feelings would only lead to pain. It was all too easy to ignore that part when the Doctor’s eyes were on hers. 

“Have a go at the boost your own,” said the Doctor, lifting her hands away. Yaz ached to reach out and pull them back - but no. She had to concentrate and not make an idiot out of herself in front of the person she wanted to impress the most. 

Taking a breath, she tried to go through the motions the Doctor had shown her. The first lever - up until it clicked into place. The Doctor watched her with an encouraging expression so Yaz surmised she’d made the correct choice. The second lever - swing to the left so it sat at a rough right angle. The third - what was the third again - ?

Yaz’s grip slipped and the TARDIS gave a sickening jolt. She found herself flying and quickly lost all sense of where the floor was. Her stomach turned as she was thrown haphazardly around the console room. So much for trying to look cool. 

“Yaz!”

Oh. Yaz realised she was about to bang her head on one of the pillars. Desperately, she flailed her limbs to try and alter her course and when that failed settled for curling up in a ball.

“Gotcha!”

The Doctor’s arms were around her but there was no time to enjoy it. The two of them were sent rolling along the floor as the TARDIS began to right itself. The Doctor’s coat fell across her face and she got a mouthful of wool. Then everything went still, for which Yaz was eternally grateful.

Something warm lay across her. There was a shuffle as it moved and then the Doctor’s face was close to hers. 

“Yaz? Yaz? Did you break anything? I’m sort of the wrong kind of doctor but I think there’s a first aid kit in here somewhere. Borrowed it from Florence Nightingale and never got the chance to give it back.”

“I think I’m OK,” she said. Her limbs felt like they were made of lead. 

“So you got the timing a teensy bit wrong but not to worry! We can always try again.”

“Let me just...catch my breath,” said Yaz. She sat up, which was a mistake as the room lurched alarmingly. The Doctor was watching her with a curious/worried expression.

“Maybe that’s enough piloting for today. How about tea and biscuits?”

“That sounds perfect.”

It was funny, Yaz thought, that despite the excitement and adventure that the TARDIS offered, she was happiest just sitting with tea and biscuits, listening to the Doctor’s stories about how she once saved the world with nothing but a Jammie Dodger.

You’re in trouble now, Yasmin Khan. It isn’t the aliens and monsters that make this life so dangerous. It’s coming to care for this woman who travels the universe, trying to do a little bit of good everywhere she goes.

**Author's Note:**

> 10 years ago I wrote my first fanfiction and it was for Doctor Who
> 
> Since then I have got my degree, fallen in love, come out of the closet, moved away from home...
> 
> But no matter how much changes I will always watch Doctor Who and be grateful for everything it's given me. Felt right to give something to the fandom again. 
> 
> Hope someone out there enjoys it!


End file.
